The Benefits of Marijuana Legalization Essay example

Marijuana has been a part of American culture for over one hundred years. It has been vilified, heralded as a miracle drug by supporters, branded a gateway drug by opponents and proposed as paper, rope and a myriad of other possibilities. Yet for all the support both for and against it marijuana still remains illegal, widely used, fiercely prosecuted and barely studied. Legalized marijuana in the United States can be controlled and profitable industry by using low taxes, regulation and mirroring alcohol legislation. By allowing it to become an open industry it could be more closely monitored, save taxpayers millions of dollars in law enforcement costs and eliminate the criminal enterprise that profits from the illegal drug trade.
The 1937 Marijuana Tax Act effectively ended all marijuana sales because of the high tax it imposed and was the precursor to the criminalization of cannabis. It was backed by some of the most powerful people in America at the time, William Randall Hurst and the DuPont family. The reason the bill was so fiercely supported by them was because the DuPont family was investing heavily in synthetics that would be competing with marijuana as a raw material. William Hurst would have to compete with it in the paper manufacturing industry and the bulk of his fortune was in timber. The bill was passed and marijuana use quickly faded seeing only a brief resurgence during prohibition.
Prohibition did not work for alcohol and it is not working for marijuana. Marijuana is a drug and a narcotic and like all other drugs it should be regulated. It is not as harmful as other drugs as marijuana overdoses are almost unheard of. According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s online criminal justice statistics for 20...

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... are better options than what we have now. With legalization and firm methods of control and regulation marijuana can be an accepted and profitable product in the U.S. economy.

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Benefits of the Legalization of Marijuana Essay
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